Expiring Object No.1 is a work that explores the aesthetics of expiration. It is an ‘art-object’ whose worth is limited to the life-span of its embedded energy source. To live with this object means to wait for it to die: a matter of months or years. Every flash of its light is both a celebration of its finite energy source and a movement closer to its expiration.

The form and material constitution of the cube is partly inspired by 20th century American minimalism. Its material simplicity is complicated by the embedded electronic device: a flashing LED light and associated circuitry designed to do nothing other than drain the embedded battery. Once the battery has drained, Expiring Object No.1 ceases to function in its designated form and becomes disposable. Its disposability is dictated by its access to energy, not to its solid material presence; now wasted.

Initial calculations estimate the life of the work to be around 12-18 months.

Taken literally, it seems like a preposterous idea: “I am sound”. Must be a metaphor. But it is not. It can be shown that I, genuinely, ‘am’ sound. In fact, so is anyone who hears. The approach that yields this realisation involves examining the perception of sound as informed by experience. This is an understanding of sound that is very different to a scientifically informed one. The scientific conception of sound is, here, bypassed.

Bypassing a scientifically informed world view does not mean refuting science. It means engaging with another perspective by which a different understanding can be reached. In this article, that perspective is experience. It is a perspective that is always immediately available and it is a perspective that logically, necessarily, precedes the scientific world view. It should be stated, however, that the perspective of experience, its attendant background of consciousness, and its perceptual and cognitive content has long posed a problem for science. One of the great philosophers of the 17th century Gottfried Leibniz, for example, articulated in The Monadology (1714) that perception is “inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions”. More recently the Australian philosopher David Chalmers has labelled the attempt to explain our qualitative phenomenal experiences as the “hard problem of consciousness” (1995, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness). To illustrate the gulf between science and experience, consider the experience of the two colours red and orange: there is a qualitative difference that we are intimately aware of, but that cannot be explained, let alone adequately observed, by science.

The examination of the experience of sound produces an understanding of perception that is very different to the scientifically informed one. In the experience of sound, it is impossible to identify an act of perception as something that causes a perceived thing: a percept. In the experience of sound, sound simply and magically appears in consciousness, without any intrinsic awareness that an organ has carried out the sensing. The reciprocal of the absence of an act of perception is that there cannot be any perceiver that engages in that act. Unlike the scientific word view, in the experience of sound there is no subject, no ‘self’.

The empirically informed scientific understanding of hearing tells a very different story. It is focused on the mechanism leading to the percept that occurs within the subject: a physical object vibrates, it causes changes in air pressure around it, those changes in pressure travel as waves moving through air, they reach the ear, affect the drum in the inner ear, which in turn translates the signal to the human nervous system, ultimately resulting in a perception. In the scientific understanding a sound is distinct from the person who has a sound-sensing organ; and this sound-sensing organ allows the person to ‘sense’, or ‘perceive’, the sound. In the experience of sound, however, none of the above mechanism makes itself known. For example, when one hears a loud unexpected sound one does not become aware of a sudden change in the movement of the ear drum. When asked to point to a sound, the listener will point to the apparent source of the sound, not to the changes in air pressure that lie just outside the ear drum. The physical, biological, neurological act of hearing is largely transparent to the experience of sound. The mechanism of hearing may be scientifically and empirically observable, but in the experience of sound, all that happens is sound simply, magically, ‘appears’ in consciousness.

Now, consider the comparison of the act of hearing a sound with the act of kicking a ball. Both scenarios have a subject / verb / object.

It might be correct to say “I kick the ball” because I can identify a ball (without it being kicked), I can reproduce the act of kicking (without a ball), and I can identify my foot (without either kicking or a ball).

But it is NOT correct to say “I hear the sound”. This is because, firstly; I cannot perceive a sound other than to hear it, and secondly; I cannot hear anything that is not a sound. Simply put the words ‘hear’ and ‘sound’ are redundant. I may be able to catch a ball, and kick a box, but I cannot hear a light, nor smell a sound. All I can do to a sound is hear it, and all I can ever hear is sound. It is thus more accurate to say “I hear” or “I am conscious of sound”.

From the perspective of the experience of sound, where does the sound stop and the hearing begin?

To prove this to oneself only requires looking for the separation between hearing and sound. The separation between a ball and kicking is clear; it is demonstrable simply by showing that one can kick something else. But where does hearing stop and sound begin? Conceptually speaking, it might be suggested that the sound stops on one side of the ear drum, and the hearing begins on the other. Yet, as stated above, there is absolutely no evidence of the hearing organ when sound appears in consciousness. In the experience of sound, there is no line between sound and the supposed act of hearing. In fact, the act of hearing doesn’t actually seem to exist. All that exists is the awareness of the sound itself. There is apparently no perception, just a percept.

If we take this logic further, it turns out that it is similarly impossible to identify an ‘I’ or ‘self’ (the thing that perceives) as separate from the sound itself. In the statement “I hear”, where is the line that has ‘I’ on one side and hearing on the other?

It is easy to direct one’s attention to a sound, and focus on it. One can listen to a sound, and start to identify more detail within it … more patterned textures, more detail in its timbre, new component frequencies not noticed before etc. But if one tries to direct one’s attention to ‘I’ it becomes extremely difficult to find anything. It is hard enough to find this ‘I’, whatever that might be, let alone try to find more detail about it. If you think you have found this ‘self’ try to focus on it and identify more of its detail in the same way that one can focus on sound and identify more detail in a perceived sound.

Attempt the following: scratch a surface near you. Focus on the sound. Keep focusing on the sound until you start noticing more detail in it. Now, as you keep scratching, try to focus on the ‘I’. If you can find an ‘I’ try to start noticing more detail in it, more information about it. Now switch back to the sound, focus on it, wait until you notice more detail in it. Switch to the ‘I’ again, focus on it until you find more detail in it. — You will notice that it is very easy to focus on the sound, but practically impossible to focus on an ‘I’ (that isn’t just an idea, or a concept).

The notion that a perceiver cannot be found to accompany a percept (or otherwise) is not new. The lack of any experiential evidence of a ‘self’ was articulated by 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume in his A Treatise on Human Nature:

… when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception.

… If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I call reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me.

Archie Shepp’s album “I Hear the Sound” could more accurately be called “There is The Sound”

In A Treatise on Human Nature Hume characterises individuals as a ‘bundle of different perceptions’ in ‘perpetual flux’ and without a persistent self. Hume’s understanding is clearly informed by the observation of experience rather than an ‘objective’ scientific view. If one observes the experience of sound, and genuinely tries to find evidence of a self doing some hearing, it will not be found. Above, the phrase “I hear a sound” has been corrected to “I am conscious of sound”. In the absence of an identifiable ‘self’, in the experience of sound, the phrase “I am conscious of sound” must further be corrected to the statement: “there is sound“.

So how can I say “I am sound”? Outside of my perceptions, what am I? If one was to be deprived of all senses, touch, smell, sight, taste, sound then what would be left? Would there be an ‘I’ left? Perhaps there would only be an ‘I’ left that can do nothing else but think? But, from the perspective of experience, is there a ‘self’ that is responsible for thinking?

5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas.

Wittgenstein extends the idea that there is no ‘self’ evident in perception, to the idea that there is no self, no centre, no subject, present in thinking. This can be understood as an extension of Hume’s observations from perception to cognition (cognition is, broadly speaking, what happens in our minds *after* perception). Just as Hume says that there is no evidence of a ‘self’ in perception, Wittgenstein extends the absence of this ‘self’ to thinking. Of course, some (including myself) would argue that we do not control thinking, but instead are merely ‘aware’ of our thinking. In this understanding, thoughts and emotions are perceived just as colours and sounds are perceived: they just magically appear in our consciousness.

If I was deprived of all senses and the ability to think, what is left? Where is the self? Who would I be?

It is at this point in this inquiry that I conclude “I am sound”. By that, I mean that I am all of my perceptions, including the awareness of thoughts. There is, here, a critical point that needs to be emphasised: there is no ‘outside world’. There is only my world. This point can perhaps best be articulated by saying that there is no ‘outside world’ that causes these perceptions, rather; my world *is* these perceptions. In Wittgenstein’s words:

5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)

Inverting Wittgenstein’s statement offers a slightly different emphasis: my world is me. What is being challenged is that there is a distinction between a notional ‘outside world’ and a separated independent ‘self’ that exists within and acts within this ‘outside world’.

5.632 The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of the world.

When I become aware of a sound, I am that sound. I am the world that magically appears in my experience.

Much philosophical enquiry engages with the question of ‘free will’ by explicitly exploring how it can be defined. In the previous post, I provided one ill-considered definition. In this post, I am going to take another approach. Instead of attempting to find a suitable definition of free will, I will reference a situation in which an individual has made a choice concerning a specific thing. This will allow me to tackle certain questions *without* getting bogged down in a definition of ‘free will’. I will outline the situation, the choice, then ask who or what is responsible for that choice.

In this post I am exploring a line of argument. I am testing a thread to see if it can reveal anything. If it leads to something interesting then I will continue to develop it, and provide it with the appropriate context. Any challenging of the argument is welcomed.

Romeo: Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!

The situation I will tackle is fictitious, but plausible. It comes from Shakepeare’s tragedy ‘Romeo and Juliet’. The sequence of events that I will reference starts when Romeo has just been informed that Juliet is dead, and ends with a choice: Romeo decides to end his life. Romeo’s ultimate response to his lover’s death is to drink some poison and bring about his death. This is the choice I will examine.

Of course, anyone who is familiar with the plot of Romeo and Juliet will know that Romeo’s suicide is indeed tragic because Juliet has, in fact, not died at all. And so his death can be described as a ‘poor’ choice or, perhaps more appropriately, a mistake.

The question I will try to address is this: Who, or what, caused Romeo’s death?

Is Romeo’s death of his own doing? Is it a result of his own choices made within a difficult context? Is it a result of circumstances? Is it a pre-determined fact? Is it a result of Juliet’s actions?

Lets proceed slowly.

Romeo has decided to take his own life because he cannot bear to live without his love, Juliet. Lets start, then, by postulating that the cause of Romeo’s death is Juliet’s death. If Juliet had not died, Romeo would not have died. However! As we know, Juliet has not died at all. Thus if we suggest that the cause of Romeo’s death is Juliet’s death then we must correctly state that it is actually the idea of Juliet’s death.

Here we can immediately conclude that ideas can be extremely powerful and that ideas need not be veridical, or true, to exercise that power. The fact that Juliet did not die very clearly shows that it is only an idea (that of Juliet’s death) that caused Romeo’s death. The fact that the idea is false does not detract from its power.

But the key and critical insight to be drawn here is far more radical.

If Juliet *had* really died, then it would still have been the idea of her death that caused Romeo’s death. The reasoning behind this insight is very simple; there is no clear distinction between an idea that happens to be true, and one that happens to be false. Shakespeare’s narrative very clearly demonstrates this fact.

In other words, it is the thought, or the idea, that creates the emotional pain, not the real physical fact. Any discrepancy between the mental image of what happened and what actually happened has no importance to what is felt. We can thus solidly conclude that it is not Juliet’s death that caused Romeo’s death, but rather the idea of it. This holds true whether or not Juliet’s death is fact or not.

The idea of Juliet’s death exists in Romeo’s head. So if we say that it is this idea that has caused Romeo’s death, then we might as well say that it is Romeo’s mind that has caused his death.

Now we start to get to the nab of it: did Romeo *create* that idea in his mind? Clearly no. It would be a highly un-desirable idea to create! Why would anyone, who has the ability to control the ideas in their head, create such an idea? It is Balthasar who introduced this idea by bringing the bad news to Romeo:

Balthasar watches Romeo’s despair after the idea of Juliet’s death has just been placed in Romeo’s head.

I saw her laid low in her kindred's vault,
And presently took post to tell it you:
O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,
Since you did leave it for my office, sir.

So Romeo did not create the idea that led him to take his life. It was provided to him, verbally, by another. Similarly, Balthasar also did not create this idea, because he learnt it from seeing Juliet appear dead. If this causal chain is traced backwards, then it must also follow that Juliet did not create this idea in Romeo’s head either, because her own actions would be subject to their own causes (ad infinitum).

The closest correct statement, following this line of reasoning, might be to say that the idea of Juliet’s death, in Romeo’s mind, was created by circumstance (or perhaps ‘the world’). This reasoning is more or less in line with the determinist theorem of free will.

However! Given the idea of Juliet’s death taking root in Romeo’s mind, he could have pursued one of many different possible courses of action other than taking his own life. The theory that Romeo might be able to choose exactly how to act, free of any causes, is called libertarianism. The notion of moral responsibility, and the human accountability for it, depends on the libertarian view of free will. Many other notions central to western society, such as punishment, are also based on libertarianism.

But libertarianism has some major problems. Let’s continue with our line of argument: at some point *after* the idea of Juliet’s death appeared in Romeo’s mind, another idea appeared: the idea to take his own life. The question then becomes: what happened between those two ideas? Whilst Romeo wasn’t responsible for the first idea, did he “step in” and become responsible for the second? This would mean that there are two different kinds of ideas. Some are created by the individual, others are a result of worldly circumstance. This is broadly the compatibilist theorem of free will, which occupies mainstream philosophical thinking. The incompatibilists, for their part, say that determinism cannot coexist with free will, but they do not commit to either side! If there is a line between ideas that are causally determined and those that are freely willed, then where is it? What is it made of? What does it look like?

If Romeo had the capacity to control or create ideas in his mind, then would it not have been easier to simply remove the idea that Juliet had died? It might seem absurd to suggest that one might be able to *remove* painful ideas from one’s mind, yet do we not assume that we have control over what we think? When an idea, a thought, becomes painful in itself, then it becomes apparent that we have much difficulty in controlling those ideas.

In fact, by taking his own life isn’t Romeo actually expressing the following sentiment:

I cannot control this idea (of Juliet’s death) in my mind, so I will instead remove it by taking my own life

Isn’t suicide a last desperate attempt to control the ideas that reside in our heads? Isn’t suicide a very pure and simple expression that we do not have control over the ideas in our heads? Isn’t suicide typically preceded by a sleuth of different attempts to control the ideas in one’s head … whether it be drugs, exercise, consumption, religion or whatever?

Suicide can then be understood as a refusal to accept that we cannot control the ideas in our heads. It is an act which fundamentally expresses the extraordinary depth of belief we have in free will. If we postulate that free will does not exist, then suicide can be a seen as the result of the powerful illusion of free will.

Is the cause of Romeo’s death the illusion of free will?

The illusion of free will cannot be the cause of Romeo’s death any more than any other of the circumstances that contributed to the story. Perhaps the more pertinent question to end on is the negative:

If Juliet had not died, then Romeo would not have taken his own life. Similarly, can it be said that if Romeo did not have the illusion of free will, he would not have died?

Note: In this blog post (and those to follow), I will attempt a new way of writing. I will attempt to develop a set of ideas, over days or weeks. But in each post, the ideas will not be complete and may be out-right wrong and later rejected. This might frustrate readers, I don’t know. It might even deny the writing any sense of academic worth in that the ideas will change, perhaps radically, as they are read, re-read, re-written, and responded to.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Misanthrope. 1568

The question of whether or not free will exists has occupied philosophers for thousands of years. It is a question that holds broad implications. Indeed, the denial of free will disrupts any notion of moral responsibility. Relatively recently, scientists have also begun contributing to this question by presenting hypotheses based on empirical research. Here, I will bypass any speculation of whether or not free will exists. Instead, I will assume a position, and explore some of the implications of that position. This strategy is designed to uncover if the implications of a position might shed light on its plausibility. The position I will assume is that there is no free will.

Portrait of Spinoza circa 1665

As a reference, I’ll cite Dutch philosopher Benedictus de Spinoza; a key figure in the history of western philosophy who, in part III of his 17th century manuscript “The Ethics”, wrote:

In the Mind there is no absolute, or free, will, but the Mind is determined to will this or that by a cause which is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so to infinity

Spinoza’s rejection of free will is posited on the laws of causality. Of course, any discussion on free will needs to define exactly what is meant by “will”. This is one of the ongoing challenges in the philosophical enquiry into free will (see this summary here). For the purposes of this discussion, I will define the notion of will as the following: the capacity to choose as it exists within the mechanism of thought. In other words: faced with a choice, the individual has a think and arrives at a decision. This definition is undoubtedly open to criticism but, again, this research endeavour is designed to move past the proposition to test its purported implications, not its perfectness. I will come back and revisit these definitions if the need so arises.

Here goes. If there is no free will then:

The illusion of free will is extremely convincing.I believe that I am responsible for my actions, and that I choose to act in certain ways. Indeed, this belief lies at the heart of much of my human experience, for example: my self-respect depends on what I achieve. If there is no free-will then what I achieve is none of my doing and so the concept of self-respect no longer makes any sense. As mentioned above, the lack of free will also affects the notion of responsibility … but it doesn’t stop there. Emotions such as regret (‘why did I do that’?) and pride (‘I’ve done so well’) depend on the notion that I have some control over my will. So if there is no free will then, by God, the illusion is convincing.This raises the question, what is the mechanism for this illusion?

Georges Rousse

Just as a trompe-l’œil achieves the illusion of being real by approaching how the eye might see something, I ask: how might the illusion of free will function?

And, just as certain visual illusions (as in the example to the right) can be quickly denied by changing the perspective of the viewer, I ask: how might the illusion of free will be denied?

I hold no responsibility for my actions.If there is no free will, then I cannot hold responsibility for my actions. Here, I will quickly move past any absurd suggestion that this assertion might lead to some kind of moral depravity.

Instead, I will ask: if I hold no responsibility for my actions, then who am I? And what does that ‘I’ do? If that ‘I’ does not act, does not make decisions, then what does it do?

How might I pursue happiness?If there is no free will, then how do I, as a human being, pursue happiness? (whether it be, as Spinoza identifies it, through fame (or respect), wealth, or the pleasure of the senses (sex drugs and rock and roll!)).

How does a philosopher, like Spinoza, come to the conclusion that there is no free will?This last question is very perplexing. If there is no free will, then how does a philosopher come to the conclusion that there is no free will? Again, assuming that the insight of the absence of free will is correct, then how does a ‘not-free will’ come to the conclusion that there is no free will? Read one way, this proposal seems to suggest that having such deep insights is mere chance. Could this be so? Or is there some kind of order, some kind of intelligence that lies elsewhere?

Pre-mediation: The process of conceptualising how the present moment might translate in a future mediation.

In this image, there is a transferal of seeing … from our eyes to the lens of the device. We knowingly engage that transfer with a forward projection: that whilst our own brain might capture the moment as a memory, the device can capture the moment as nothing less than a proof.

This proof is not for ourselves but for others. It is a proof delivered on social media; something by which to shape one’s own identity in the eyes of others.

I propose a project in which mediated experiences are understood in terms of the user’s absence from the consciousness of the real, current, physical world.

This project not only inverts the notion of presence, familiar to critical research concerned with mediated experiences, but it also switches the area of concern by asking: What makes us absent in our non-mediated experiences? It is concerned not so much with how we engage in such things as social media, but rather asks why we dis-engage with the immediate reality of everyday existence.

The project is underpinned by a hypothesis:

A user absentees from their current reality when an opportunity arises that offers them the ability to project their desires into the future.

In this hypothesis, the mind is understood to be an instrument of time. That is; the mind has concepts of both the past and the future, and any thinking it engages in necessarily involves those concepts.

Lombard and Ditton (1997) propose a brilliantly succinct definition of presence: the illusion of non-mediation. Within their elaborations on presence they identify various modes. One key mode is social presence, in which social realism engages without any necessity for perceptual realism. Of course, social networks such as Facebook provide a high level of social presence. In so doing, they also provide a high level of absence from the non-mediated reality.

Perhaps unlike presence, a high level of absence can also occur without any mediated reality. The above hypothesis holds: absence is caused by the opportunity to project one’s desires into the future. A mediated reality is not necessary for the world to offer an individual the opportunity to project their desires into the future.

This project aims, in part, to examine how mediated experiences might intensify opportunities to project one’s desires into the future. Ultimately, however, the intent is not to understand the mediation of experience, but rather to understand absence from the consciousness of the real, current, physical world.

Facebook recently bought a Virtual Reality headset company (Oculus) for 2 Billion dollars. There is outrage within the VR community who essentially funded this company’s development through crowd funding. They miss the point.

Jaron Lanier coined the term “virtual reality” over twenty years ago (when VR was in vogue). He has expressed many times that VR would only begin to deliver its promise once the technology caught up. He also said that VR was significant in the sense that it could change people’s relationship to their own bodies and their immediate environment. For Lanier, VR is not so much about creating imaginary worlds, as it is re-modulating our experience of the world. VRML (which died in the 90s?) delivered on a static computer screen entirely misses the point. The Oculus Rift, however, totally nails the point. With technologically realised tiny latencies …. it manages to perceptually convince that one is in another world. It convinces the body … see here (this man falls over):

Place that ability into the hands of a business that has pervasive control in our social worlds … and whose control is not necessarily “bad” but is clearly only really interested in generating profits … and there are some potentially hairy outcomes that we need to consider.

How will Facebook attempt to ‘virtualise’ our social existence?

The movie “The Matrix” didn’t explicitly consider the manufacture of virtual realities aimed at serving the banalities of commercial interests.

Here’s another collection of VR’s renewed ability (through the Oculus Rift) to take control of our perceptual faculties. I wonder if some day we will look at these videos and find them a little less funny: